An Indian Bible and A Brass Hawk: Land, Sachemship Disputes, and Power in the Conversion of Ben Uncas II

In October 1736, the Mohegan Sachem Benjamin Uncas II caused a public stir by professing Christianity. Instead of reading this event as a simple “conversion”, this essay resituates this profession of Christianity in the wider social, cultural, and political contexts of the 1730s, arguing that these contexts are critical for understanding the full ramifications and motivations for such a public religious affiliation. The two most relevant contexts are bitter sachemship disputes in the 1720s and 1730s and the Mohegan Land Controversy, a drawn-out legal battle over Mohegan land that lasted seventy years. Instead of mapping onto more traditional religious events—like the First Great Awakening—Ben Uncas II’s various religious affiliations and associations correlate more particularly with these other social upheavals, in part because they garnered transatlantic attention and the intervention of the British crown.